Jackson Township tries to get Thrills strip club shut down, again

Testimony began Tuesday on a hearing where Jackson Township again wants the Thrills strip club and restaurant to shut down for a year and not reopen without a permit it's never had.

ANDREW SCOTT

Testimony began Tuesday on a hearing where Jackson Township again wants the Thrills strip club and restaurant to shut down for a year and not reopen without a permit it's never had.

Jackson Township attorney John Dunn and Thrills attorney/manager Ira Weiner appeared before County Court Judge David Williamson on the township's request for a court order to shut Thrills down again.

Thrills, which features scantily clad erotic female dancers, private lap dances, food and beverages, opened in March 2010 at Route 715 and Doll Drive, in what was then a commercial zone. The location previously had been home to a restaurant and bar without erotic dancers since 1987.

The Jackson Township zoning ordinance allows adult businesses, such as strip clubs and adult video stores, only in its industrial zone.

The township said Thrills was a nonconforming "adult cabaret" use requiring a permit to operate at that location under the zoning ordinance at the time, but Weiner said the business shouldn't be required to have a permit because it's still a restaurant and bar. The township said Thrills also violated state law by obscuring private lap dance areas from the view of the general public in common areas.

Siding with the township, the court in October 2010 ordered Thrills to close for one year and not reopen as a strip club unless it had a permit, which the township would grant only if Thrills followed state law and stopped obscuring the private lap dance areas. Thrills has since appealed in state Supreme Court and is still awaiting a response on that appeal.

Thrills meanwhile reopened in October without a permit and again has been found in violation of both township and state law.

In a separate but related move, the township in October passed a new ordinance rezoning Thrills' current location from commercial to single-family residential (R1). A restaurant and bar, even one without erotic dancers, is a nonconforming use in the R1 zone under the current ordinance, which means Thrills now needs a permit to continue operating there at all.

Weiner said in court Tuesday that the township had not given him a copy of the current zoning ordinance and that the court therefore should take no action until he's had a chance to review it.

"We're here under the previous zoning ordinance," Weiner said.

That has become moot, Dunn said.

"If the court again closes Thrills, the business must either follow the current zoning ordinance and get a permit to reopen as a restaurant and bar without erotic dancers, or never reopen again at that location," Dunn said.

Tuesday's testimony focused on whether the business qualifies as an adult cabaret and thus a nonconforming use under the ordinance. Weiner doesn't deny there are female dancers or private dances, but has a differing view of what constitutes an adult cabaret.

Investigator Byron Johnson with Pinnacle Investigations in Spokane Valley, Wash., and Easton school bus driver Sean Hinkel, whom Pinnacle Investigations hired, said they saw scantily clad and bare-breasted dancers on several different visits to Thrills. They said they had private lap dances in locations screened from common-area public view.

Weiner challenged their definitions of "common areas" and asked both witnesses if they are familiar with liquid latex body paint, which can make a dancer's breasts appear bare around the nipples.

Stroudsburg professional photographer Duane Kerzic, whom Weiner hired, took pictures of Thrills' interior. Weiner used Kerzic's photos to argue that private dance areas are visible from common areas.

Testimony resumes in July.

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